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I determined that I just don't have the patience for pretty cookies. 

When I took them to our friends house, everyone "Ooo'ed" and "Aww'ed" at them and said how pretty and fancy they were, but I still felt bad of what could have been. 

Oh-well...there are plenty of football games coming up for me to practice! Right?

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3. After the better is melted, toss is a little over 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour. Turn the heat down to medium. 

4. Using a whisk, make sure the butter and flour are mixed well. This is the base for your cheese sauce. 

5. Next, you'll add 2-3 cups of cold milk. Now you'll turn the stove back up to high and whisk together the butter/flour mix and the milk. This sometimes takes awhile, but be patient because you'll want to make sure that you get all the lumps out. If you're having problems getting lumps out with your whisk, you can always use a fork or I sometimes throw it into my blender for a minute or two. After you've got everything mixed, turn the heat back down to medium. You don't want to scold the milk, you'll want your sauce at a nice low boil. 

6. Now for the cheese! This is where you can go off in any direction you like...adding American cheese like I am. Or adding any type of cheese that you're family enjoys. I think some Swiss and Gouda sounds awesome together or Fontina. My hubby and my oldest boys are not cheese snobs like my baby and I are...so, it's good old American cheese for them. 

7. If you were using block cheese, I would suggest using at least 8 ounces and testing it out from there. For the slices, I'm using 8 slices. (This picture didn't turn out so great for some reason.)

8. With your sauce still on a medium boil, let the cheese melt down and stir as needed. This is also the time to season your cheese sauce. You'll want to season it, taste it, season it, taste it...until it's just right. You can always add more season, but it's a pain the try to take it out. I used sea salt, pepper, basil and garlic powder to season mine. 

9. Once the seasoning is right, and the cheese is all melted - go ahead and pour your sauce on your drained noodles. You're almost done!

10. Mix well and that's it. Go ahead and give it a quick taste again to see if it needs any more seasoning. 

I'm linking up to: 

Organizing Junkie, Skip to My Lou, Keeping it Simple, Project Inspire, A Southern Fairytale, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Sugar Bee Crafts, Funky Polkadot Giraffe, 33 Shades of Green, Naptime Creations, Not Just a HouseWife, The Winthrop Chronicles, I Should Be Mopping the Floor, Todays Creative Blog, Reasons to Skip the Housework, Southern Lovely

With dinner, I made my "Famous" garlic bread....my boys love it, but it's just bread with butter, garlic, basil and parm cheese but under the broiler until it's browned (not burned!) The two cans of tomatoes made a huge amount, so I froze what we didn't use and that will make for a quick supper one of these nights. 

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(The kids fell in LOVE with this room - now they want bunkbeds for home!)

.....

The problem with us going on any type of road trip, is that we end up spending a small fortune on food.

Stop for a drink here. 

Kids are hungry. 

I wanna snack.

Anyone that has kids knows exactly what I mean. 

But, for this trip - other then the cost of our room - we budgeted only $120 for gas and any other misc items that come up. 

(Our room cost is covered by a gift card that we got for Christmas...we had a little over $65 left on it, which covered our dinner cost.)

Anyways. so only having $130 to spend is not a lot considering how much gas costs. 

(Around $3.30 a gallon here.)

Here's how I broke down the budget:

Gas: $90

Souvenirs: $10

My plan was to spend no money out of pocket for food.

First, we needed some breakfast food for our morning....

The kids always just eat cereal, so I packed up enough for two large bowls. Then some chocolate cheerios for me. Chris isn't much a breakfast eater, so he'll have coffee and the pecan rolls. The pecan roll-ups I found for only $0.25. The Silk shelf stable milk is perfect for road trips - we had a fridge in our room, so we could keep it cold. 

Next is all of our lunch supplies. Fruit punches, Lunchables and pretzels for the kids. 

(I got the Lunchables on sale for a $1.00 each - kids love them, can't beat that!)

I made some PB&Js for Chris and I to eat and brought tortilla chips for me and another bag of pretzels for him. We ate all of this on the way there...instead of stopping at some fast food joint and spending an easy $25 on burgers and fries. 

Plenty of water! This is essential for us! We were able to keep the bottles cold and just refilled them with tap water as needed. 

Finally...our room snacks. This is our stash for those late night cravings that we all seem to get while we're on vacations. Other then the cherry pie, it's all pretty healthy stuff. 

(P.S. Zone Bars - especially the peanut butter ones are the best thing in the entire world!)

And, since I am seriously the most forgetful person on the face of this planet...

this was my list to NOT forget our sandwiches and other items I stored in the freezer. 

Ahhh....Chick-fil-a.

That was almost more exciting for me then Great Wolf Lodge. 

A few months back, Chick-fil-a was having blog giveaways for their kids meals all over the place. 

I ended up winning two different giveaways.

So I got six coupons for free kids meals. 

(Each coupon was for a free chicken nuggets, fries and a drink.)

And I miss it dearly.

(Side note: If you've never ate Chick-fil-a, you are missing out BIG TIME!)

Anyway...I looked up and less then 5 minutes from Great Wolf Lodge -

there was a Chick-fil-a!!!!

I was so, so, SO excited to be able to eat there!

The plan was for the kids to each eat a kids meal, and for Chris and I have to have two of them. It ended that Chris and I couldn't resist and ended up getting ourselves a chicken sandwich, so we will still have two free coupons left over. 

That was a little over $6 for the sandwiches, it was SO worth it!

If you added it all up....that was 

1 breakfast

2 lunches

1 dinner

plus snacks

for 4 people....for practically nothing. 

I love it when I can do that. 

Next week, I'm going to show you how to save money while camping! 

Have a great week!

What are your tips for saving money on road trips? 

I'm linking up to:

Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Mad in Crafts, Keeping It Simple, Craft O Matic, It's So Very Cheri, Singing Three Little Birds, Destination: Craft, Serendipity and Spice, Homemaker on a Dime, Flour Me With Love, CRAFT, Sew Can Do, Sweet Anne, Brassy Apple, Lines Across, DIY Home Sweet Home, A Stroll Through Life, Sugar Bee Crafts, New Nostalgia, Coastal Charm

I love the bold colors of this one. It makes me happy just to look at it. 

My second favorite is her print titled "Are You Hiding Your Cross"

Kristi is one of the most open, caring people I know. She has a beautiful family- her husband, Mitch and three beautiful boys! And she is very beautiful herself!

Recently, I uploaded several of her pieces onto CafePress to make pieces of jewelry out of them. I really love how they turned out:

Here are a few more of Kristi's pieces that I love: 

Kristi sells prints through her blog, and you can also buy prints, jewelry and other items through CafePress too. Make sure and check her out! 

Make sure and season the sausage with salt and pepper. My family won't eat the peppers and onions, but if yours will, now is the time to dice them up and brown them with the sausage.

While the sausage is cooking, start washing and peeling your potatoes. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Dice the potatoes into small bite sized pieces. Then you'll smooth your potatoes in a single layer onto a cookie sheet. Pour some EVOO over all of them. Here's my favorite from Trader Joe's! 

Season the potatoes too. Use whatever you have on hand. I happen to have some of the best seasoning in the whole wide world for my potatoes.... Jack Stack All Purpose Rub!

Place the potatoes in the oven for 20 minutes, or until tender. 

After the sausage is done cooking - drain the oil of of it. 

Now for the eggs. 

Crack 5 to 6 eggs and add your milk then shake them up, I like to use my Tupperware Quick Shake .

I use the biggest, deepest pan I have to cook the eggs. Cook the eggs until they are about three fourths of the way done. After the eggs are done - throw everyone in the pool. Then add the drained sausage and cooked potatoes in the pan. Cook on medium for about five minutes. Stir well to make sure everything gets browned a little more.

Add a cup of cheddar cheese - or whatever kind of cheese you have on hand. 

Stir everything up really well. This is going to be your last chance to season the dish, so make sure and give yourself a taste at this point to make sure it's yummy. If your family likes spice - add some cayenne pepper or Cajun seasoning. 

Using a 1/3 cup, start filling the tortilla's with an over-flowing cup.

Then roll them up by tucking and folding. Then you'll wrap each on in a paper towel. 

After your done with all 10 tortillas, you'll go back and wrap each on in plastic wrap.

Once I'm done wrapping up all the burritos - I put them into one larger freezer bag and stick them in the freezer. These don't do well to heat from frozen, it's best to let them sit out in the refrigerator overnight first. 

When you heat up the burritos, you'll remove the plastic wrap but leave on the paper towel. You'll cook each one for about 2-3 minutes. Serve with your favorite salsa and sour cream.

And enjoy! 

Note: If you wanted to make these into a lower fat version, you could use turkey sausage, low fat cheese and whole wheat tortillas. 

I'm linking up today to: 

Funky Polkadot Giraffe, 33 Shades of Green, Naptime Creations, Tip Junkie, Not Just A HouseWife, 

Lil Luna, Trendy Treehouse, HOH, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Simply Sugar and Gluten Free, A Stroll Through Life, Sugar Bee Crafts, New Nostalgia, Coastal Charm